HANS JONAS ON TELEOLOGY IN BIOLOGY.
THE RELEVANCE OF EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY FOR BIOLOGICAL THINKING
Keywords:
Life, Biology, Existential, Hans Jonas, Teleology, CausalAbstract
Teleological concepts are considered suspect in modern biology but they seem to be difficult to uproot without losing important biological categories such as “function” or “adaptation”. This paper briefly reviews the various philosophical approaches to re-defining teleological concepts using causal theories and then discusses a very different approach to the philosophy of life, namely Hans Jonas’s existential philosophy. In his major work “The Phenomenon of Life” Jonas attempts to find a solution to the disparity between the human experience of life and the materialist assumptions of modern science. Using a range of historical, ontological and epistemological arguments he shows the inadequacy of the materialist stance and instead suggests a possibility for a co-existence of the causal and teleological approaches as they both stem from our human experience.
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